Each week, we’ll highlight the most important Cisco partner news and stories, as well as point you to important, Cisco-related partner content you may have missed along the way. Here’s what you might have missed this week:

Off the Top

Richard McLeod stopped by the Channels Blog this week and dared partners to be bold in collaboration. Coming off a fabulously successful Collaboration Summit, Richard reiterated his mantra of “dare to be bold” around four key imperatives.

If you attended Collaboration Summit, check out Richard’s follow up blog and reinforce the lessons from the event. Even if you didn’t attend Collaboration Summit, Richard’s blog is a great place to catch up on what you might have missed. Read More »

I recently had the honor to speak at the Wi-Fi Global Congress in Beijing. As evident by the more than 400 people in attendance, the importance and relevance of Wi-Fi continues to grow. The Wireless Broadband Alliance now has over 100 members, a doubling in less than 2 years. The membership includes a mix of leading Wi-Fi, mobile, and broadband network operators; global service providers and media players; as well as technology providers and partners.

I took away six key messages from this exciting conference:

Next Generation Hotspots is Alive and Well. One of the most exciting things at the conference was the launch of the live NGH Experience with China Mobile as the host operator and Cisco as the network infrastructure provider. Attendees with a Samsung Galaxy or iPhone 5 could experience the first ever opportunity to seamlessly and automatically connect to the venue Wi-Fi. Participants also received valuable conference information and services seamlessly delivered to their mobile device through NGH. This is just the beginning. With 15 major carriers (and growing) signed up to deploy NGH, mobile users throughout the world will be able to experience the next generation of Wi-Fi early in 2014.

Wi-Fi Roaming is Becoming a Reality. Several speakers described roaming as being where cellular roaming was 15 to 20 years ago. However, with the successful launch and upcoming deployment of NGH, seamless roaming amongst carriers is now becoming a reality. Indeed, the GSM Association recently approved a Wi-Fi Roaming Annex that will make it easy for mobile operators to support this. As such, the WBA expects roaming to be fully automated across more than 80% of public Wi-Fi networks by 2018.

Wi-Fi is an Important Part of the Mobile Network. The world’s largest mobile operator, Read More »

“’Tis the season” as they say. Soon you will hear the count- down of how many shopping days left until Christmas. Like it or not, the biggest retail shopping day of the year takes place the Friday after Thanksgiving. But, what I really get excited about is Cyber Monday. I don’t know about you, but I plan to do the majority of my shopping online. I am not new to online shopping of course. I have been using it out of necessity as a working mother without an abundance of extra time and will continue to use it for a variety of reasons including…

I don’t have to beat the crowds for those BIG sales, I can compare prices instantly on a single site, I usually can finagle free shipping by using coupon codes or just taking advantage of holiday incentives, and I can get my shopping done in a matter of minutes versus the hours I would have spent had I actually gone to the store.

I will say that the shopping experiences I have had to date have been pretty good. But, they could still improve. For example, there have been several occasions where I have had questions about an electronics product (like a computer) and wanted to ask someone who really understood the features of the product. I wanted to have that real-time experience where I could have a back and forth conversation with a “human.” I don’t want to just look at the picture of the computer and guess by the description whether or not it was the right purchase to make. Another time I was ordering a chair for my home office online and wanted to make sure I had the right style and color to match my room. So I called the support line and had to describe my room, desk dimensions, and wall color etc. In the end, Read More »

The Microsoft ecosystem continues to be an important area of focus with our Cisco Datacenter product and solution teams. UCS, Nexus, UCS Management, and ACI teams have continued to innovate and launch new offerings during the past few months. Let’s take a look at our recent happenings and launches that can help enable your organization to deliver an optimal datacenter environment for your Microsoft platforms:

1. PASS, Microsoft SQL Server, and Cisco’s Unified Datacenter…

We’ve ramped up our focus on Microsoft’s SQL Server platform! Investments in PASS (Professional Association of SQL Server), Pass Summit 2013, and the PASS Virtualization Chapter afford us the opportunity to educate this world-wide BI and Data Management audience on UCS, Nexus, FlexPod, and VSPEX. Stay tuned for more from us, too as Microsoft gets closer to shipping their SQL Server 2014 platform.

2. Cisco and the Microsoft Cloud OS Launch…

Occurring around the world during the November 2013 to January 2014 timeframe is Microsoft’s Cloud OS launch – the coming out party for Windows Server 2012 R2 as well as System Center 2012 R2. Cisco will be a local sponsor at many of these events – in fact as of this writing we have wrapped up our participation at multiple events in Canada, Germany, and South Africa. Please stop by your local Microsoft Cloud OS event and visit the Cisco booth to learn more as well as listen to Cisco’s Chief Technology & Strategy Officer Padmasree Warrior on our Microsoft alliance and datacenter solutions.

Microsoft was a key strategic partner at our recent New York City ACI launch with strong support from key Microsoft leaders such as Satya Nadella, Executive Vice President of their Cloud and Enterprise business unit. Satya shared the stage with Cisco CEO John Chambers in announcing ACI to the public. In addition, Microsoft’s Brad Anderson, Corporate Vice President, System Center blogged on the event and created a video on his ACI thoughts. Microsoft – with their key platforms of Exchange, SQL Server, and SharePoint – sees ACI as a way to deliver ‘…datacenter without boundaries for our customers…’

As we head towards Thanksgiving, it amazes me how fast time flies. 4th of July was a few weeks ago, right? I have yet to start holiday shopping, although the conversation at least came up this week. Wait! There is so much to get done before Christmas, so much to do with the Cisco Small Business Team! But yes, I digress.

This week, my colleague Product Manager, Nasser Tarazi, who manages the Cisco Small Business Wireless Access Points, created a short video covering how Cisco’s Single Point Setup makes the configuration, deployment and management of multiple access points a snap. In less than 5 minutes, he had a secure wireless network with two access points. All of configuration was done through a setup wizard that guides you step-by-step how to configure the access points. They automatically optimize the key radio settings so that is one thing less for you to do. I could go on and on about how easy and fast it was, but it would be easier for you just to watch the video.

The bottom line is that Single Point Setup saves you time and money and you don’t need to be or have an expert to configure these products. In fact, this is a consistent trait for all of Cisco Small Business Wireless, Switching and Routing Portfolios. We believe that making our Small Business portfolios are among the easiest to deploy, configure and setup as we have made it one of the top priorities.

Please take a look when you have a moment. If you have a little more time, remember to take a look at our list of Cisco Small Business online emulators. These emulators do just that, it provides a simulation of how the router, access point and of course switches can be set-up, configured and managed, all in an intuitive way.

Nasser would also like to note that the AP541N is now End-of-Life. The replacement products are the WAP551 and the WAP561.

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